Observations on politics, news, culture and humor

Tuesday’s links

Just links for tonight because it’s getting too late, but I’ve got two articles–one on U.S. military deserters in Canada, another on Barack Obama’s Race to the Top program–picked out and ready to go for tomorrow. Coverage to come as soon as I get back from work.

The Globe & Mail: I pulled the plug on this article after the first clause of the first sentence–“Preventive detention without charge sounds like the stuff of repressive regimes…” Go ahead and stop right there, obedient tool of the security state mr. journalist. Preventive detention without charge sounds like the stuff of repressive regimes because it is the stuff of repressive regimes. We have become what we hate.

NYT: economic recovery accelerates in Germany, with the unemployment rate at 7.6% compared to more than 13% five years ago. Of course, the rest of Europe is jealous: “But Germany’s success is also a significant point of contention with leaders in France and other countries who believe that some of it comes at their expense. Germany exports far more than it imports, in part benefiting from easier access to credit than in the heavily indebted countries.” And how is it that Germany gets easier access to credit than, say, Italy? Maybe it’s because Germany can actually manage a state budget. The fear of inflation and insolvency borders on obsession in Germany. The Germans are willing to trade off other things to fight their great phobia, and that’s why they get easier access to credit. If Italy wants that sort of access to credit, then Italy should stop spending beyond its means.

Der Spiegel does China, for two: the first article debunks the “China now has more respect for private property than the West” myth that has been floating around (and was even once embraced by this blog) through a profile of forcibly expropriated people. And no, these aren’t the sort of people who were de facto expropriated with promises of being moved to “better” living conditions, these are people who just looked out their windows and saw bulldozers one day. The second article throws yet another warning on the blossoming Chinese property bubble. One of those stats I keep seeing but bears repeating again–a condo in Beijing costs 20 times the average yearly Chinese salary, a condo in Tokyo only costs around eight times the average Japanese salary. The article’s conclusion again draws on Japan, making the point that China could be headed for a Japan-style lost decade…but with a brutal authoritarian state added to the mix for good measure!

The Globe & Mail: bemoaning the fact that China is using exported inmate laborers to build many of its development projects abroad. There’s a definite risk that the Chinese regime might lower conviction standards or look more aggressively for lawbreakers just to get enough convicts on its labor gangs. But for me, I’m just happy that the notoriously execution-loving Chinese regime isn’t killing these guys. I guess there’s a danger that they might get worked to death, but I imagine most convicts would rather take their chances building bridges in Tanzania than getting murdered in a Chinese prison and having their plastinated bodies end up in a Western anatomy carnival.

People’s Daily: headline–“China invests 380 million yuan in Xinjiang publishing.” Let us pay homage to the glorious Han who are coming to enlighten backwards Xinjiang with free books and media! Could you guys make your propaganda any more transparent? What sort of material do we think Beijing is dumping into Xinjiang for free? For some reason, I don’t expect it’s truckloads of Korans or Solzhenitsyn or Murray Rothbard.

People’s World: obit for Lolita Lebron, a Puerto Rican secessionist. I saw her mentioned in the daily paper today, too. This was a woman who participated in a rifle attack at congressmen from the gallery, wounding five of them in 1954. I don’t like Congress. I don’t care at all if Puerto Rico secedes. But using a gun to make your political point is revolting. Don’t fight U.S. collective violence with violence of your own. How this woman is getting laudatory obits is beyond me.